by Maggie Thom
Kim started stacking the dishes. Tarin jumped to her feet to help, thankful for something to do. “I’ll do that. You keep an eye on Chance.” The huge smile that was bestowed on her son was thanks enough.
“Is everything okay, there?” Tarin nodded in the direction of Bobbie and her mom as she stacked dishes.
“Mom and Grandma? Oh yeah. They fight a lot but it’s usually because Grandma wants to buy something she can’t afford. My guess is she’ll be driving that car by the end of the week.”
“Oh and how will she do that?”
“Mom says that’s why she has a string of men and there’s always at least one with a guilt-ridden conscience.”
Surprised, Tarin looked at Kim.
She laughed. “Mom’s nicer definition of the guys in Grandma’s life. The other is—”
“That’s okay, Kim, I don’t need to know about your grandmother’s boyfriends. I’m sorry that’s caused some problem between the two. I guess that’s why your mom doesn’t date much?”
“Probably. Mom gets so mad at Grandma, and the way she dates the young and the old. It’s kind of funny but she sure does get some nice things. I wonder if she’ll let me drive her Mercedes?”
Tarin carried the dishes into the house, Kim and Chance followed her. “You know you don’t need a guy to buy that for you, right? If you get the right education and a good job or start your own business, you could buy it yourself one day.”
“You sound like Mom. She’s always telling me, don’t turn out like Grandma—work hard, save your money.”
The sliding of the patio door alerted her to Bobbie’s return. She quickly finished cleaning up their meal.
“Okay, I guess we’re ready. Do you have a bathing suit and trunks for Chance?” Bobbie said as she approached them, her face red and her eyes still snapping with anger, although she modulated her voice to a gentler, softer tone.
“I have some shorts I can wear and he has some he can put on. We’ll play in the kiddies’ pool. So no worries.” Tarin smiled. She wanted to hug her friend but there was something in Bobbie’s expression that kept her at arm’s length.
“Do you mind if we stop at the cemetery on the way, to leave some flowers on my grandmother’s grave and my sister, Tammy’s? I’ve been meaning to take Kim but one thing or another has gotten in the way.” Bobbie pulled Tarin aside. “I’m really sorry about Mom. She almost never comes over. Well, unless she wants money. I’m—”
“It’s okay. Forget it. One of these days, I’m going to have to deal with Dad. And yes, let’s visit your grandmother and your sister’s gravesites.”
Thirty minutes later, they were walking through Mount Pleasant Cemetery, one of the oldest ones in the Toronto area. Tarin read the names on the tombstones as they passed by. Bobbie laid a beautiful bouquet of roses on her grandmother’s grave. As she watched, it dawned on her that she had no idea where her mother was buried. She had to have a tombstone somewhere, didn’t she?
She got a chill up her back and an eerie feeling they were being watched. Her head snapped around as she scanned the graveyard. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. It was a gorgeous sunny day. There were a few other people paying respects but none were looking her way or seemed the least bit interested in her. She watched for a moment before she put it off to cemetery nerves. Chance picked up a three-leaf clover, thrusting it at her. She allowed herself to get down to his level and help him explore. She couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she had, though she finally attributed it to all she’d been through the last few days and the fear that Stephen or her father would find her. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more. Being only an hour away from her dad was a bit unsettling. For some reason, she felt as though he knew where she was.
Later that day after they’d arrived home, she put an exhausted and freshly bathed boy to bed. He’d had so much fun splashing and giggling and running; all things he wasn’t accustomed to. Gently kissing her son, she tiptoed from the room, feeling tired but overjoyed at seeing him so happy. He seemed like any normal boy who hadn’t been through a lot of ups and downs in his young life.
She needed to do some research. Wondering if she should use her laptop, she decided she couldn’t take the chance. She wouldn’t put it past Stephen to have installed a tracking device on it and since she was still a bit unsettled from the cemetery, she decided not to push her luck. He didn’t know about Bobbie and he wouldn’t know she was looking for someone who’d been dead for twenty-nine years, so she asked Bobbie if she could use her laptop.
Never having looked for someone’s gravesite before, she had no clue where to start. Two hours later, she had learned a lot about cemeteries and interment but still had no idea how to find her mom. Tarin really wanted to go onto her own website but didn’t want to open that door. She didn’t want others she hadn’t invited to know about it. Bobbie was probably as good or better on a computer than she was, and although she loved having her friend back, something was stopping Tarin from sharing too much.
She started to type in her mom’s name, only to realize she wasn’t sure what it was. Tara Louise is what came to mind but when she googled that name, along with Madsen, her dad’s last name, nothing showed up. In fact, she couldn’t find anyone with the name Tara Louise that had lived in Ontario. Frustrated, she slapped the kitchen table she was using as her desk.
“You could ask your dad, you know?”
She slapped her hand to her chest. “Jesus, Bobbie. You scared the heck out of me.”
“Cool. But so you know, if you really want to vent, then slam your fist onto the surface.” She did just that. “Okay, your turn.”
Tarin laughed a little uncomfortably. “Really. I’m fine.”
“Come on. You are so repressed, girl. You need to let go of some of that anger.”
“I’m not mad.”
Bobbie looked at her with that raised eyebrow.
Tarin tapped her fist onto the table.
Bobbie burst out laughing. “Well, it wasn’t much but I’ll take it.”
She smiled, feeling better. “I should have been able to find something about my mom, right?”
“You’d think. But you could save yourself a lot of time by asking your father.”
“I know. Just not yet. I don’t understand; shouldn’t my mom’s name, Tara Louise, show up somewhere?”
“Where’s your birth certificate? It’ll have her information and maybe help with tracking her down.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Hey, no problem, you can apply for a new one.”
“Right.” She didn’t bother to tell her that her father had it. He’d always had it. In fact, she’d never seen it. When she’d applied for her driver’s license, he’d sent one of his flunkies with her to ‘protect’ her and to hand over her birth certificate for the licensing office to get the information they needed. They’d handed it back and he’d taken it. Then when she’d gone for her passport, her dad had obtained all the paperwork for her to fill out and then had sent another flunky with her to apply. He always claimed he did it so she didn’t have to worry about the small stuff. She could focus on her job and he’d keep track of everything else. It hadn’t been such a big deal then, but now she was seeing how big of a deal it really was.
What had he really been trying to hide?
She decided to check out how to apply for a new birth certificate.
It seemed easy enough, if she had all the information. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t shake the question—was her mother dead? Or alive?
Chapter Nine
“Good morning, Dorothea. Sorry to bother you.”
Dorothea looked up from the ledgers for Caspian Winery. Everything in her business was computerized but she was still old school and preferred everything to be on paper. For a long time, she’d had her accountant make a computer copy and a handwritten copy. It had taken her a long time to trust that what went into an electronic device wasn’t going to get lost. Her staff had been annoyed
and she knew the redundancy had been a waste of time but she hadn’t been ready to believe electronics were safe. She still wasn’t sure but she’d eased up a bit. She’d leave it for her successor to embrace the computer era... whoever that might be.
“Good morning, Tom. What can I do for you? Has something happened since our Monday meeting?”
The tall, slender man took off his hat and held it as he stood there. “No, well I mean yes. But it’s not about me. Although, I’m sure Oliver will try to convince you of that.”
Dorothea rested her elbows on her desk and clasped her hands firmly in front of her.
“Do you mind telling me what you’re talking about?” She really didn’t want to hear it and didn’t have time to play referee between the two again, but it looked as though she was going to be doing that anyway.
“Well, it appears that we have bad wine—”
Oliver came sailing through the door. “Dorothea, excuse me for barging—what are you doing here?”
“He was telling me something about some bad wine?”
“What did you do, stand outside my door eavesdropping? And then—”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping. I happened to be passing the office, when I heard you talking with someone about one of our bottles tasting like vinegar.”
Dorothea gasped. “What are you talking about?”
“So you heard part of the conversation and had to run to the boss with what you think you know.”
“Well, I’m not going to be blamed for it,” Tom said.
“Well neither am I, but I do think that new ice wine we started making was a mistake.”
“Of course you’d think that. You haven’t done anything different in fifteen years.”
“Gentlemen, can you please tell me what’s going on?” Dorothea got to her feet, placed her knuckles on her desk and leaned forward but neither man was paying her any attention. She stacked all the papers in front of her and slid them into the top drawer. All things breakable had long since been removed from her desk.
“This is not my responsibility.”
“Well it’s not mine either. I just grow the grapes.”
“Stop!” Dorothea knew he was talking about his suggestion a year before that Tom look into using Riesling grapes so they could make ice wines, which were becoming quite popular. They were always quibbling over something. Tom didn’t like Oliver and felt he was overpaid, prissy in his suit and ties and should keep his nose out of the growing end of the business and do his job which was to distribute the wine. Sadly, it was almost word for word what Geoff, her second-in-command had said. Some days, she felt like throwing both men into the sandbox and see what happened. Or maybe throw them in with five-year-olds so they could learn something. On that issue, she had sided with Oliver but had made it clear that he was to bring any ideas to her first and she’d share what she deemed was appropriate. She’d done the same with Tom, who had on many occasions made suggestions to Oliver on how he could improve shipping and distribution.
They were both territorial and thanks to her brother, Geoff, adversarial in their dealings with each other. He’d played them, like he’d played so many, convincing each of them the other was out to destroy them. And there had been incidents she’d thought were manager oversights only later to learn Geoff had orchestrated it all. Oliver seemed to have come around but Tom was still grumbling. She’d spent some time with each of them and thought she’d made headway but one little incident later and they were fighting like toddlers. As if she didn’t have enough to do with trying to save the business that her brother had darn near drove into the ground.
“How would you know? You’ve only been here for three.”
“Because you’re a typical guy in a business suit.”
Dorothea reached behind her and picked up her cane. She lifted it in front of her, only then realizing she’d picked up the one that her granddaughter Bailey and fiancé Guy had given her. It was beautifully crafted with intricate designs by a native elder. She felt very touched by it as she looked at it, and although it would never be used for its intended purpose—walking—she still enjoyed it. She set it back before lifting the one she’d meant to pick up. She barely looked at the polished ash wood but it did make her smile to think the doctor had recommended she get it to help her with walking. She, however, had found a much better and more effective use for it.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means—”
Lifting it high, she brought it down hard atop the shiny wood desk. Both men froze. They had been standing nose to nose, hands clenched and cheeks mottled with anger, but now they both slowly turned to face Dorothea.
“Glad I’ve got your attention. Sit down. I’ll ask the questions and tell you who is to answer. Got it?” She sank slowly back into her chair, feeling a bit drained. “Oliver, since you took the call, what is this about bad wine?”
“I got a call from Don Wilson. He’s the manager of the Sunrise Villa Resort on the outskirts of Toronto, with its twin resort in northern Ontario. Anyway, he called to say that one of the bottles from their last shipment was bad. Thankfully he called us, because he could have called the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), since they control wine distribution in this province. We could have had a disaster on our hands.”
“What do you mean bad?”
He closed his eyes briefly before meeting her gaze. “Vinegar. He said it tasted like vinegar. I haven’t gotten all of the information, except it was one of our new ice wines.” He turned to glare at Tom. “We send all our wine to LCBO’s warehouse and they ship it from there. To check the shipment, I’ll have to call them.”
“How many cases were bottled?”
“Thankfully, it’s one of our newer brands, so we only made two hundred cases.”
“Has anyone else complained?”
“No. But to check all of those—”
“Don’t. Do we have any left here?”
“Yes, almost half.”
“Okay. Run a quality check on one bottle from each of twenty to thirty random cases. Let me know the results immediately.”
Dorothea had learned the wine industry as a young girl, but it was her and Jonathon, her now-deceased husband, who had worked hard to make the winery what it was. But there was one thing she hated and that was waste. And to discover what had gone wrong there was going to be a lot of waste.
“What are you going to tell LCBO? They keep track of the number of bottles of wine made.”
“Internal quality control audit; it’s quite standard.” She wrote a couple of things on her notepad. “Get Mr. Wilson to open twenty—”
“He did. The rest are good but because he opened them to check them, I told him we’ll send out a new shipment tomorrow—only it’s supposed to go through LCBO.”
“Ship it and let me handle the LCBO. There’ll be hell to pay but let me deal with it. Add in an extra case of our Bordeaux for Mr. Wilson. Ask him to please keep this to himself but be discreet about how you say it. I want that bottle back. I hope he didn’t throw it out?” Oliver shook his head. “Actually all of them, the empty as well as the full ones. Today. “
“There is nothing wrong with that wine or the grapes. Besides, if something tastes bad it needs to be addressed with Martin, our winemaker.”
“Yeah but—”
“No. This stops now. I’m bringing in a mediator to sit down with you two. I’m not going to have this continue. You’ll learn to get along.” She didn’t have to threaten dismissal; she could tell by their expressions that they understood the implications. She shouldn’t be wasting her time on their squabbles, especially as busy as she’d been putting out all the other fires Geoff had lit. And she just didn’t have the energy to deal with it anymore.
Perhaps it was her knuckles rapping on the desk or her frown, but both excused themselves politely and left.
She was about to pick up the phone when her direct line rang. Frowning more deeply, she glanced at the caller identification. Sh
e sighed heavily; James Madsen wanted to talk to her... again. She’d already told him no, so she ignored it, letting it go to voice mail.
She made several calls. “Graham. Is Guy there? He’s not answering his cell.”
“No, he’s not. He should be back in about fifteen—”
“I need to meet with you both. I’ll be there in ninety minutes.” She hung up and called her driver. This was no small deal. In the almost hundred years Caspian Winery had been in business, not once had the wine tasted like vinegar. There had been some bad years that weren’t worthy of their award-winning wines but never had they ever shipped out anything but the best. Something didn’t feel right about this. She reminded herself that they’d managed to get through some other bad times. This, too, would pass.
A dull ache in her left shoulder grabbed her attention. She pressed her hand over the area. Hopefully this, too, would pass. She took a few deep, calming breaths. The pain reminded her that she had seriously considered stepping down. The problem was who would replace her as CEO. She couldn’t very well have resigned her position before then as she’d had to clean up all of Geoff’s messes. Someone else could have tracked all that he’d done—the embezzling, the fraud, the lies and the fake companies—but the embarrassment for her family had kept her in a central position. The media had already spread vicious rumors about her relatives, so she had done everything she could to stop the gossip.
The guilt was still front and center when she considered all her brother had done—killed several prostitutes, stolen from their own company, Caspian Winery, kidnapped her granddaughter as a baby and then tried to kill her as an adult. It was still so unbelievable what he’d pulled off. She’d forgiven him for a lot of what he’d done to her—the stabbing, the abuse—but not for what he’d done to her family nor to the business. It had taken two years to straighten out his mess—the fake vineyards they’d supposedly purchased, the excessive bank account under a fictitious name—though they’d found another one recently, so she wasn’t sure they were done looking at the misdirecting of funds. The list kept getting longer and longer. The only thing that made it slightly bearable was he had paid the ultimate price with his life. It made her sad, as she really did miss the boy she’d so adored, but not the man he’d become. She knew if he was still alive, he’d be doing something else to make her life hell. And for that, she could not forgive him.